Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne)
23 October 2008
Agnes Ntamabyariro, former Minister for Justice, on trial in Rwanda for her alleged role in the 1994 genocide, was defended Wednesday by her Tutsi cousin, Pascal Gashumba, who stated that she had been threatened and could not intervene in favour of anybody, reports Hirondelle Agency.
Gashumba stated before the Court of First Instance of Nyarugenge, Kigali, that Mrs Ntamabyariro, born from a mixed marriage, did not have the confidence of the militiamen and that she had to explain herself at every road block.
"It even happened that she was forced to get out of her car and to sit down on the ground", the witness added.
Towards the end of 1994, in a refugee camp in the former Zaire, Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, sentenced to life in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), reproached her relationships with ethnic Tutsis, said Gashumba.
The prosecutor, Emmanuel Nsengiyumva, asked the court not to give any credit to Gashumba's testimony, asserting that the witness, as her cousin, belonged to the radical Hutu born within the Liberal Party (LP) in 1993.
"Hunger and insecurity were rampant", responded the former minister, also mentioning that nowhere in the files of the prisoners were there ethnic references.
The prosecutor reacted by reminding that until 1994, the arrest statement of prisoners indicated their ethnicity.
"And if it was proved that some convicts were released without amnesty, without presidential pardon, nor within the framework of a provisional or conditional release, wouldn't that be contrary to the law?", asked for his part the single Judge, Roselyne Ninahazwa.
"It would be an extraordinary case, or then a case of interference of other institutions or bad civil servants", answered back calmly the former minister.
In addition to these allegations, according to which she would have delivered Tutsi prisoners to bands of killers, Mrs Ntamabyariro is prosecuted for planning the genocide, organization meetings of the genocide in Nyanza (southern Rwanda) and Kibuye (western Rwanda), distribution campaigns of weapons, the murders of a godson of her husband and the Tutsi Governor of Butare (southern Rwanda) Jean Baptiste Habyarimana.
On trial, since June 2006, she is the only member of the then interim government during the genocide to be tried in Rwanda
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